Elian Gonzalez, the famous rafter boy, became a congressman

Cuban Elián González had the same big eyes and penetrating gaze two decades ago when he became the focus of a legal and diplomatic dispute between Cuba and the United States after he was shipwrecked in the Florida Straits with his mother at just six years old. In the states.

But now he’s a young engineer, he’s married, he’s the father of a girl, he works in a tour company, he’s a companion.

“I have a commitment, I have a responsibility to these people,” Gonzalez responded during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, when asked why he accepted the nomination of various social organizations for the National Assembly of People’s Power, Cuba’s parliament.

The assembly was renewed in April with 470 new representatives, and González occupied a seat representing his home municipality of Cardenas, in the province of Matanzas and 130 kilometers east of Havana.

The position of member of parliament in Cuba is not for rent, so González will continue to be attached to his work.

“If I ignore my people it would be hypocritical,” said Gonzalez, 29.

“I believe that we can do a lot from Cuba so that we can have a solid country. I owe it to the Cuban people, to all those who fought for me, to all those who were with my father, and that’s what I’m going to try. I have to do it now from my position”. was added.

Many have fond memories of AP photographer Alan Diaz’s dramatic April 2000 snapshot — for which he won a Pulitzer Prize — of a terrified little boy pointing his gun at an adult in uniform with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent. in them. The aim was to rescue the boy and hand him over to his father.

The scene at the Miami home marked the end of months of tripartite tensions between Cuba, the United States and anti-Castro exile groups from Florida.

His story

In November 1999, his mother, Elizabeth Brotens, put five-year-old Elian on a boat without his father’s permission to take him illegally to the United States. Ten people, including her and her partner, died in the shipwreck.

The boy, tied to a tire tube, was rescued after days adrift at sea, and because of laws then in effect—giving political asylum to Cubans who reached the United States—he was extradited. A great uncle.

In Cuba, his father Juan Miguel González, a humble tourist worker, helped Fidel Castro claim his son.

Little Rafter’s case gained notoriety, television cameras surrounded the little boy’s home in Florida, and anti-Castro groups pressured him to stay in the United States, accusing his mother of giving her life to get him to a country. Civil liberties and material wealth.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, hundreds of thousands took to the streets, led by Castro, in support of his father.

“Not having my mom was hard, it was a burden, but it wasn’t an obstacle when I had a father who knew how to stand up (to protect me) and be by my side,” Gonzalez said. A share of those events. “I feel like a child, a teenager and a happy adult.”

Then-United States Attorney General Janet Reno ruled that the child should be returned to his father, but on April 22, 2000, when his relatives refused to return him, he was forcibly returned to his father. , who traveled to pick it up.

On June 28, the González family landed at José Martí Airport in Havana.

“The most important thing is that I grew up like other young people. I grew up in Cuba,” González said.

Elian González, a member of the legislature, gave a priceless interview to the AP in Havana. See for yourself #Say something pic.twitter.com/JFnFh19Dfa

— Mario J. Penton (@MarioJPenton) June 30, 2023

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